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World Health Organization Calls For Decriminalization of Drug Use
An anonymous reader writes: We've known for a while: the War on Drugs isn't working. Scientists, journalists, economists, and politicians have all argued against continuing the expensive and ineffective fight. Now, the World Health Organization has said flat out that nations should work to decriminalize the use of drugs. The recommendations came as part of a report released this month focusing on the prevention and treatment of HIV. "The WHO's unambiguous recommendation is clearly grounded in concerns for public health and human rights. Whilst the call is made in the context of the policy response to HIV specifically, it clearly has broader ramifications, specifically including drug use other than injecting. In the report, the WHO says: 'Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration. ...Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs." The bottom line is that the criminalization of drug use comes with substantial costs, while providing no substantial benefit.
This is one of the most messed-up issues in the history of humanity. Hopefully we'll see an end to the insane war on drugs in our lifetime! Drugs are made more dangerous by being illegal, I don't know why so few of us in the United States didn't learn the lesson from alcohol prohibition.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
...if its goal was to prevent drug usage.
Disagree. The point of legalizing drugs is to prevent an underground supply. The rationale is quite simple: You're not going to stop people from taking drugs. Someone is going to profit from supplying those drugs, so there is either going to be a legal source or an illegal source. A legal source is better than an illegal source.
Anyone selling drugs should be required to inform the users about the risks and consequences. If you still want to take up an addictive drug, that's your own damn fault. It's been proven over and over again that you can't prevent people from taking drugs, so that cannot be the objective. The rational objective is to protect others from the effects of drug use (no second hand smoke, keeping intoxicated people off the streets, etc.)
No, this is the old "Reefer Madness" mentality, meant to make happy both the Puritans and the prison profiteers while keeping the politicians in an elevated state of power.
What actually happens, and Portugal ran this experiment with a sample size of over 8 million people during the past decade, is that when drug use is decriminalized, the usage rate quickly falls to about half.
Most of those are people who are no longer afraid to seek treatment. Some are folks who wind up court-ordered to get treatment, and a few were drug users who were only doing it because drugs seemed cool because they were illegal.
At the end, though, the incontrovertible fact is that the community has half the number of drug users as it did under Prohibition. Prohibitionists are responsible for a doubling of the drug usage rate in the community. Does that seem counter-intuitive? So what? The data is in.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I've been thinking along these lines for a few years now. Make the drugs legal, regulate them, and possibly even have the government sell them. Use taxes on drugs to fund rehab programs. Give sex workers a way to get out from drug induced slavery. Cut the head off the cocaine cartel by growing it here or importing it from someone else. Take a blow to the coffers of street gangs as well as more organized criminals.
The obvious number one downside is the potential for an increase in number of addicts. I never really had the answer for how to counter that. Social stigma? Government monitoring program on those who buy from the "drug store" that encourages rehabilitation? But maybe if you make the harder drugs extra affordable in an outpatient setting like you describe, it offers a way out for the addicts, while making it inconvenient for dabblers and college kids to get into the really nasty stuff. You could still sell (and tax, of course) the less addictive/destructive drugs, as you would alcohol and tobacco.
And bonus points if this reduces violent crime rates by people trying to get money to fuel their need.
You can be addicted just as easily to legal drugs as to any substance on the federal schedule. You can be addicted to behaviors like gambling and eating. This problem needs to be addressed medically.
The rationale behind "not in public" isn't that I don't like it but that drug use has significant deteriorating effects on society and can thus not be allowed to become normal social behavior.
Bullshit. Any truly free country would not infringe upon people's fundamental liberties in the name of safety. Also, have you ever heard of personal responsibility? If someone sees you doing drugs and wants to try them too, then that is *their* problem and no one else's. And I think there are constitutional problems with the drug war, and constitutional problems with banning public drug use.
I have a better idea: Stop trying to control people and just leave them alone. That way, maybe we'll move closer to becoming 'the land of the free and the home of the brave' rather than 'the land of the unfree and the home of the worthless cowards who sacrifice freedom for safety.'
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.